http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9994NU80&show_article=1 7 US troops killed throughout Afghanistan Jul 6 03:09 PM US/Eastern By FISNIK ABRASHI Associated Press Writer KABUL (AP) - Bombs and bullets killed seven American troops on Monday, the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in nearly a year—and a sign that the war being fought in the Taliban heartland of the south and east could now be expanding north. Separately, Taliban militants claimed on a militant Web site that they were holding an American soldier whom the U.S. military says insurgents might have captured last week. The Taliban statement, however, did not include any proof, such as a picture or the soldier's name. Four of the deaths Monday came in an attack on a team of U.S. military trainers in the relatively peaceful north, bringing into focus the question of whether the U.S. is committing enough troops to secure a country larger than Iraq in both population and land mass. On a visit to Moscow, President Barack Obama said it's too soon to measure the success of his new strategy in Afghanistan. He said the U.S. can take another look at the situation after the country's presidential elections on Aug. 20. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in some respects, progress has been "insignificant" in Afghanistan. He said it's hard to say how quickly the situation will improve. Obama has ordered 21,000 additional American troops to this country, mainly in the south where Taliban militants have made a violent comeback after a U.S.-led coalition topped them from power in late 2001. The U.S. expects 68,000 troops here by year's end, double last year's total but still half as many as now in Iraq. The four American soldiers killed in the north died in a roadside bombing of their vehicle in Kunduz province, said Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, a U.S. military spokesman. The soldiers were training Afghan forces, he said. Two Americans were killed in a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan, Naranjo said. And another American soldier died of wounds in a Monday firefight with militants in the east, a U.S. military spokesman said. There were no further details on the incidents in the south and the east. It was the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan since July 13, 2008, when 10 soldiers were killed—nine of them when militants using small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a remote outpost in the village of Wanat near the Pakistani border. The Taliban claim about holding a captured U.S. soldier came six days after a soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of his unit June 30. His body armor and weapon were found on the base. Two U.S. defense sources have said the soldier "just walked off" post with three Afghans after he finished working. They had no explanation for why he left. In southern Afghanistan, meanwhile, thousands of U.S. Marines continued with their anti-Taliban offensive in Helmand province. Some 500 Marines out of 4,000 participating in the operation moved into the Khan Neshin area, a Marine statement said Monday. "This is the first time coalition forces have had a sustained presence so far south in the Helmand River valley. Khan Neshin had been a Taliban stronghold for several years before Afghan, and coalition forces arrived and began discussions with local leaders several days ago," the statement added. In the southern province of Kandahar, meanwhile, a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside the outer gate of the main NATO base in the region, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people. Those wounded near the gates of Kandahar Airfield included 12 civilians and two Afghan soldiers, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the top military commander for southern Afghanistan. As the conflict intensifies, U.S. forces are under pressure to minimize civilian deaths in military operations. In an effort to reduce civilian losses, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued guidelines ordering troops to "scrutinize and limit" the use of airstrikes against residential compounds, which Taliban fighters often use as hideouts. McChrystal says he hopes to produce a cultural shift in the military so that his troops' first priority will be protecting Afghan civilians, not using massive fire power. McChrystal's guidelines went into effect last week, and officials released a declassified version Monday. The three directives are that airstrikes must be authorized and very limited but can be used in self-defense if troops' lives are at risk; troops must be accompanied by Afghan forces before they enter residences; and troops cannot go into or fire upon mosques or other religious sites, though this is already U.S. policy. "We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories—but suffering strategic defeats—by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people," McChrystal said in the statement. Civilian deaths caused by U.S. and NATO military operations have long been a source of friction between President Hamid Karzai and the West. Such deaths have deeply angered Afghan villagers, eroding support for the Afghan government and international mission. In the latest accusation, Daud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said a rocket hit a civilian house in Nad Ali district Sunday, killing four civilians and wounding four others. Noor Mohammad, from Khoshal Keli village where the rocket hit, alleged that the rocket was launched by foreign forces. NATO was not immediately available to comment on the report. British troops have been operating in the area. A NATO helicopter, meanwhile, made an emergency landing in the southern Zabul province, a spokesman for the military alliance said. There were casualties among those on board, but Lt. Commander Chris Hall did not have details. The incident was not caused by insurgent fire, Hall said. __ Associated Press reporters Jason Straziuso in Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan and Amir Shah in Kabul, and AP researcher Monika Mathur in New York, contributed to this report.
Did you post an article every time a US soldier was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan when Bush was president? If you would have have your post count would triple. I tried to block but you can't block admins. It's really annoying cause you post hundreds of articles everyday and then make no post (or say very little) after them. Do you have a point or an agenda or are you just wanting to show us all you know how to read?
At my previous site, we had a fellow who posted daily a report of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I supported the guy plenty in doing it. I don't know that I have some sort of agenda, other than to post news of the day, and to point out inconsistencies and hypocrisy of a certain line of political reasoning. Like here I point out the treatment of our last president vs. the treatment of this one. The last one was called chickenhawk and these people wanted the coffins of the fallen soldiers put on public display. Either you're anti-war or you're not, it seems to me. I do think escalating things in Afghanistan is a mistake, but I support the effort as best I can and root for our ultimate success there. That's not what I saw from those who thought Iraq was a mistake.
So? Here's a breaking news flash...... this is a message board. It's a place where people make posts about various OT things that they want to debate or discuss. If people only posted what you want them to it's be a very lonely place indeed. So post away, Denny. I may not agree with you all the time, but that's what the OT area of a message board is for. Nate4Prez may be into censorship for those he disagrees with, but I disagree.
I hadn't realized Afghanistan had a larger population than Iraq. For some reason I always assumed it was smaller because it was more rural. So why again have we always used far, far more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan (under both Bush and Obama)? If it's really about liberating the populations and trying to build democracy, you'd think you'd focus more resources on the bigger population.
...but the BIGGER population has less "resources" [aka oil] and the CIA has been reeping the monetary benefits from the opium for decades before this "war"
They were different types of operations. Iraq had a single, cohesive, visible enemy force in a flat and desertous area. Afghanistan might have a larger population than Iraq, but its a sparsely populated region with mountainous terrain. The enemy in Afghanistan is difficult to identify, as there are numerous constantly-changing competing warlords/terrorist factions isolated and hidden in very inaccessible areas. I don't have a problem with one operation having more troops than another, since one was more conducive to brute force while other requires more subtlety and patience. I'm not sure of the exact disparity though, so I don't know if its a completely unjustifiable difference in numbers.
So when a cop arrives at a crime scene it becomes his fault? Bush put the troops there, Obama has to try and finish the job. It is a little thing called accountability, but there again Bush already accomplished his mission. He put our troops in harms way to payoff his donors in the military industrial complex.
I think they're different wars. Iraq was a developed country. Their infrastructure (hospitals, schools, roads, power grid, etc.) were largely intact. That is a war to defeat a Baathist ideology as well as the Iranians trying to create a Shia theocracy. Afghanistan is more like Somalia. There is one road connecting all the cities (the ring road). That is nation-building at its most fundamental. People embrace the Taliban because people in their tribe do or because they made the country secure. Knock down the tribalism, build infrastructure and create a nation where people are safe and you've won the war. The Taliban is going to fight tooth and nail from that happening. It's going to be a slog to root them out, and their safe haven in Pakistan makes it even harder. However, if we have any hope in creating a safe and stable Afghanistan beyond the cities, we don't have a choice but to fight them.
So the argument seems to be that it's much more difficult to get around Afghanistan, much less organized, much worse infrastructure, much harder to identify the enemy, and much less of a history of a united country. So we needed fewer troops? Huh? Seems to me that these are all pretty good reasons to mobilize more troops, not less. Personally, I think our decision for a lighter footprint was based on two principles: 1. There wasn't as much return on investment in Afghanistan. It's not a strategic area, it doesn't have any oil, it's not a leader in the middle east in any real way. Every American dollar/soldier's life we'd spend there just wasn't going to net us nearly as much back as it would in Iraq. It's a real-world argument, but if your stated goal is to foster democracy, it's a pretty crappy rationale. And it ignores 911. 2. The USSR tried the heavy footprint strategy and it failed miserably. While this is true, it's not like we had to manage it exactly the same way as the Soviets did, strafing villages with helicopters, killing and raping women, hiding land mines in children's toys. You can speak softly while carrying your big stick.
Bigger armies make bigger targets. In every set-piece battle we fought against the NVA, we won. Until we went to guerilla warfare (search and destroy), we lost the military battle against the VC. The strategy in Afghanistan needs to be more of a guerllia war.
As callous as it sounds, it's a case of maximizing the value of your troops. Afghanistan's environment works in such a way that, at some point, adding more troops to your operations has a minimal effect. Success in Afghanistan depends on reconnaissance, efficiency, and eventually, winning over the minds of the locals. That said, I think the biggest mistake in the Afghanistan operation was not significantly increasing the number of troops in the area once they had taken control of much of the country. Instead, they scaled back the numbers which only made the eventual pushback by extremists/warlords inevitable.
I agree with you. After the US accomplished the harder task, they didn't close the deal, which has allowed a lot of those gains to be wiped out.
